


Please Don't Freeze

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Pet Names, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: The reunion scene between Kallias and Vivianne, this timewiththe parts Kallias chose to leave out. For example, the part where he winnowed to EXACTLY the wrong spot, the part where non-sexual nudity got far too involved, and especially the part where Vivianne used his childhood petname.





	Please Don't Freeze

**Author's Note:**

> Petition to call this ship 'Freezing Balls'.

Bundled up in layer upon layer of soft, downy rabbit fur, Vivianne huffed out a foggy breath, which plumed visibly before her in the freezing dawn air. She loved her court dearly, but sometimes she had to think: why winter? Why hadn’t her parents chosen to settle in the beachy climes of Summer, or to luxuriate in the sunshine and showers of Spring? Winter was not a season suited to thriving, to growing. It was a season to endure.

Which, she supposed, suited her down to the bones. After all, what else had she been doing these past fifty years? Fifty years clawing at strings to hold her best friend’s court together. Over and over they starved, froze, and sickened, and just when they thought they could make it through another year, Amarantha would send a platoon to decimate their forces as a reminder. A reminder that they were not born to thrive. That in Winter, most did not even survive.

The lifestyle had made the court’s people as bitter and hard as its season, but it also strengthened them. Whilst other courts had dabbled in politics and luxury for centuries, they had been pitted against Mother Nature in a constant cycle of survival of the fittest.

And Vivianne knew she was fit. Was strong. That amongst this hell, she could survive. She would survive. She had to, for she still had something left to do. Someone left on this planet to see, even if it was just for one last dawn.

Her thoughts turned to her missing high lord as she stared out across the fortifications of the court, out across the horizon. The enormous frozen lake that bordered onto Autumn glittered deceptively in the weak light, inviting, beautiful, deadly. They’d had a warm spell recently; she knew that ice would crack the moment someone set foot on it. Her watch upon the wall was not just to survey for enemies, but to ensure children did not wander out upon that treacherous plane. No adults would be foolish enough to venture there.

Or so she thought.

A light breeze stirred the falling snow, creating a haze of white and glinting ice. Everything was peaceful and still at such an early hour, too cold now for even the bravest of hunters to emerge and set off. However, amongst the obscurity, Viv could have sworn she saw something, some silhouette. Squinting, she focused her expertly trained eyes through the snowdrift and could make out whirling shadows, swirling and condensing to reveal the winnowing of a man.

A man as white as snow. A man whom she had not seen for fifty years, and yet would recognise anywhere until the end of time. She didn’t need to see his face; she could feel it like a tug on a chain within her chest.

Kallis.

Her High Lord. The man who had used his last shred of power to protect her and his people.

The man who was now plummeting into a frozen lake through rapidly cracking ice. The man who appeared and vanished in an instant. The man who, given a couple of minutes in water that cold, would soon be dead.

“Kallis!” Vivianne screamed, more in shock than idiotically thinking she could save him. Dammit. Dammit. She didn’t pause to think about why he had appeared, what it must mean to see him free and alive and breathing and home, all she cared about was dragging his moronic ass out of that lake before he went and died on her. She hadn’t kept vigil all these years just to stand by and watch him perish.

Leaping off of the wall, she skidded down a snow bank and broke into a sprint. Hands out, she froze the lake beneath herself even as it cracked, ice blooming from her palms as she commanded. It was near impossible to make out the spot where Kallias had vanished amongst the snow, the fall of which was steadily becoming heavier. Her eyes were useless to her.

So she followed her heart.

It was almost as if she could hear his heartbeat as she shuffled warily across the lake, feeling out her way with cautious steps. Yet she was not afraid. She knew she would save him. As he had done before. Because ever since childhood, they had always been equals, always treated each other with both kindness and respect, but most importantly, with care. She would not let him suffer, would not allow it.

Catching sight of the widening hole in the ice, she solidified the surroundings to prevent further rupture, and scanned the waters. Shadows swam about below, but who knew if they belonged to the High Lord, or to the huge, monstrous beasts that swam the waters beneath the ever frozen waters? Any normal fae would be dead by now anyway.

Kallias was not a ‘normal’ fae, however. He was winter incarnate. And though she had never once told him, he was her mate.

And the mate of the Stewardess of Winter was simply not allowed to die. She had dragged hundreds, kicking and screaming, back from the brink of death in those past fifty years. High Lord or not, he would be no different.

So she stripped off her furs, and lept. Dove. Split the icy waters with as much grace and elegance as anyone could manage whilst shivering violently. With absolute faith, she followed that rope leading from her chest, swimming down and blinking back the white spots of shock at the cold.

Her hand brushed fabric, skin, hair. Warmth, rapidly fading. She grabbed out, wrapping an arm around him. Swam upwards, up into the light, cresting out of water and-

He sucked in furious gasps as she heaved him out upon the ice, scrambling out herself soon after. They’d grown so cold they’d stopped shivering, so cold Vivianne almost felt warm, didn’t want to put her clothes back on, but knew she had to. She even forgot to feel embarrassed kneeling before her Lord buckass naked.

In silence, she dried and dressed. In silence, he stripped, wordlessly letting her wrap him in some of her fur layers.

Without speaking, she looked up at him to give him a crooked smile. Her brain and body and everything was too frozen to think on why he was back, only caring that he was back, that he was safe and soon to be warm. “Let’s get you inside to a fire,” she said, looking him over. How the years had changed him, skimming off his puppy fat, which she had always been fond of, and replacing her soft, shy Lord with a skinny whip of a man as angular and sharp as ice. Yet amongst the shadows beneath his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks, there beneath it all resided her Kallias, the boy she’d grown up with, the man she knew she would always protect and adore.

“Welcome ho-” She began to say, when he kissed her.

Kissed her squarely on the lips, then not so squarely as shivers and shakes shook their bodies and he did not care for elegance, did not care for pretence or formality. He took her in his arms and kissed her deep and true and with such longing that she felt those fifty years of separation all over again, felt them throbbing in her bones like muted cries of violated outrage. For their two bodies, the separation was unnatural. Intolerable.

Wrong.

She tried to make up for it by drowning in the kiss, trying to ply and suck and touch back the lost time, when all of a sudden he was gone from her skin. She opened her eyes and blinked. There he was, down in the snow. Down on one knee.

“Viv,” he said, taking her hand in his. “Will you marry me?”

She’d never seen his pale eyes so warm, so full of colour and love as she did then. Never known he could smile just quite like that, all lopsided and hopeful and boyish, yet in every way a man. A man she’d waited for for five decades.

“Promise me you won’t go swimming in any frozen lakes any time soon,” Vivanne said dryly, able to retain her cool humour even as her heart threatened to sledgehammer its way out of her chest it beat so fast. “And I would be honoured to.”

Kallias, his lips now blue, laughed. Laughed so hard she couldn’t resist joining in, dropping down to her knees and hugging him. He was home. Her beautiful, beautiful, utter dork of a High Lord was home and she loved him. Loved him so deeply it had been the only thing keeping her going amongst those trying times. “I love you, Snow Storm,” he mumbled into the fur of her collar, crying and kissing her cheeks. Stroking his hair, she leaned up and placed a soft, soft kiss upon his forehead.

“I love you too, Snowflake.”


End file.
